2025 - My quilting year in review

It's nearly the end of the year so it's time for my annual recap. I may not blog as much as I used to, but I definitely still love to quilt and sew.  

So here's a recap of 2025.  

Prizes for Excellence in Hand Quilting and Excellence in Piecing

The quilting highlight of my year was when I won two prizes for my Kokomo quilt at The Great New Zealand Quilt Show in Christchurch.  This is a show put on by Aotearoa Quilters and members from across New Zealand can enter, so I was thrilled to win prizes for my hand work.

Here are my finishes for 2025:    

1. Licorice Allsorts

My first finish of the year was my Licorice Allsorts block of the month designed by Wendy Williams.  I love this quilt because the soft Tilda Chambray colours are quite different to my usual colour palate. The hand embroidery on the black linen really pops and I loved stitching those blocks. 

2. Lightning Strike

It's become a tradition for me to make a Kaffe quilt each year, so this is my 2025 contribution.  It's big, bold and beautiful.  

3. Blue Monday

Our guild celebrated our 40th anniversary and we were each challenged to make a quilt based on the bear's paw block because it's in our logo.  I wanted to use up some of my low volume scraps, so I chose the Archie pattern. 

4.  Baby quilt

My nephew and his wife had a baby girl and I wanted to try out the Charlotte pattern, so I made them this quilt from my stash.  

5. Jingle Bells Stocking

This is a Sarah Fielke design and I really enjoyed making it.  The pattern is very good, but the video that comes with it is even better! The hand quilting makes it extra special. 

WIPs

I've spent a lot of this year working on my Sue Spargo Block of the Month projects. 

NOT my work - this is Sue Spargo's finished quilt

I have all the packs for Critter and Clover (above) from 2023 but have barely made a start on block 1. I do like the blocks, but I found it a bit hard to understand the instructions on my own. 

I have just recently finished House Plants from 2024 and it's ready to be quilted.  I love it but I can't show you until Sue Spargo releases the pattern in mid 2026.  

I'm about 65% finished Salad Days from 2024.  I'm planning to get back to that one soon.  

Then, I signed up to Bloomer in 2025 because my mum saw my House Plants and Salad Days and asked if we could do the 2025 programme together.  She was keen to do it, but she was unsure if she could manage it on her own.  So I enrolled us both and when our first blocks arrived I spent a week prepping my own blocks and then I went to Auckland to help mum get setup with her blocks.  In between my visits we exchange photos and phone calls and we are both up to date and just waiting for our final shipment to arrive in a few weeks.  How exciting!

Now we're both signed up for Sue Spargo's Kith & Kin in 2026! 

And dare I admit I bought the complete kit for Forest for the Trees when there was a big sale on? 

So this is why I hardly get any cross stitching or hand piecing done these days - I'm full time working on my Sue Spargo blocks.  But they are gorgeous and I've learnt so many new stitches. 

Slodki by Sarah Fielke

I also embarked on the Sarah Fielke block of the month called Slodki.  It's quite different to my usual style of quilts, but I do love the folk art from Eastern European countries and I'm going to Scandinavia next year! So how could I resist. 

Of course there's other WIPs in my quilting room, and even more designs I want to start in 2026, but there's only so many hours in the day and I'm very fortunate to be able to spend quite a few of those hours quilting.  

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all, and thank you to everyone who reads my blog, and/or follows me on Instagram or Facebook.